


Morphine

by Helholden



Category: Firefly
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Implied/Referenced Incest, Understanding, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:45:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1922049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Gorram crazy freak,” he mutters, and she does not have to wonder who he is talking about. It’s the general consensus of the ship. She even agrees with it sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morphine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unanon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unanon/gifts).



> **Author's Notes:** Written for Unanon on Livejournal, an old friend and writing companion. The title, and some of the basic inspiration, came from the song "Just Like A Pill" by Pink.

* * *

 

She watches in the silence of the shadows. Watches the movements in the light as they play across the wall. Like shadow-puppets, only larger. Like a ballet dance, only not as smooth. She counts the breaths, counts the sounds, wonders how many times in one minute Kaylee can gasp.

 

She begins counting that, too.

 

Counting is safe. Counting is one of the few things they’ll let her do. She counts the numbers, mostly out of curiosity to see the ending result. Often, she does not get there. They won’t let her do things like this. Even if she wants to. No one notices her that way. No one pays attention.

 

She’s like a little girl. She has no body, no beauty. Nothing to sway, like Kaylee. Nothing to ornament, like Inara. Nothing to armor, like Zoe.

 

She wonders if they would even notice the difference if she pranced around naked.

 

River walks away when it’s over. Walks away before they notice she is watching them. She counts the numbers in her head, and imagines it’s gasping.

 

Her feet take her to the dining room. Her feet always lead her to where they want to go; she never leads them. At first, it looks empty. Quiet.

 

But then, she hears his voice.

 

“Gorram crazy freak,” he mutters, and she does not have to wonder who he is talking about. It’s the general consensus of the ship. She even agrees with it sometimes.

  
  
He is standing at the counter, trying to fix himself something to eat. A late night snack, she presumes. He eats a lot. More than the others.

 

She watches in the shadows like she did with Simon and Kaylee.

 

“Jayne,” she says, testing out the name on her tongue.

 

He reacts. His head snaps up, the knife in his hand rising with it—not in the stance of a weapon, just in surprise. Jayne stares at her in alarm, and perhaps with a little bit of fear—but he won’t admit it. He never admits it.

 

“What are you doin’ here?” he snaps suddenly, sounding more afraid than he sounds formidable. She likes the effect she has on him sometimes. He gives good reactions.

 

“Jayne,” she says again, rolling the name on her tongue. She likes the way it sounds. Wonders if she can make it sound anything like the way Kaylee can make Simon’s name sound. “ . . . Jayne,” she repeats, keeping her eyes on him. Unnerving him.

 

“That’s my gorram name,” Jayne replies sharply. “Don’t . . . ” He falters for a moment, loses some of his edge. Jayne waves the knife in a random gesture. “ . . . Wear it out,” he finishes lamely. His face scrunches up for a moment. He looks back down at his food and begins chopping again with an erratic pace. He watches her, though, out of the corner of his eyes. He’s suspicious. He’s wary. He wants to make sure that she doesn’t wander any closer than she already is.

 

“Your father named you that,” she says suddenly. Jayne’s attention snaps back to her at the mention of his father, losing sight of the food once again. “He named you Jayne because it was a soft name. He didn’t want you to turn out like the one before you. Thought a soft name would make a soft boy . . . ” River is saddened at her discovery of this. “But he was wrong,” she adds quietly.

 

Jayne lifts the knife again, using it as a pointing device. “Now, don’t you go tryin’ to ana . . . ana . . . analyze my folks, little girl,” he snaps at her, but he is clearly unraveled. Her words have struck a chord in him. A chord he’s not happy with being struck.

 

“You have a softness in you, though,” River says quietly, watching Jayne with a curious but gentle gaze. “You don’t like to show it, or even admit it. But it’s there.” She nods her head, indicating his chest, her gaze following the movement. “I see it sometimes,” she says.

 

Jayne is frozen where he stands, doing nothing more than blinking in the aftermath of her speech. Lost and confused, but mostly just trying to sort out what she’s said. Not that it isn’t clear enough, but Jayne’s a man who asks a lot of questions because he doesn’t know many answers, and when he thinks of too many questions, he has to stop to sort them all out.

 

“What are you sayin’?” he suddenly asks sharply. Then, after a moment of pause, a small light goes off behind his eyes and his features turn dangerous. “ . . . You callin’ me a softy?” he accuses angrily.

 

Jayne talks too much sometimes. He speaks to fill the emptiness in his head. There’s so much emptiness that sometimes it even bothers him, and he looks for something to take its place. The words come out of his mouth and shield the truth that he doesn’t want to see. He knows he isn’t smart like a lot of the other people on this ship, but at least he’s got some sense and that’s more than some people can say.

 

Most of all, though, there is something missing in Jayne. Something missing, like a big gaping hole. It pulls him in sometimes. Pulls in the others, too.

 

River wants to fill that hole. Wants to patch it up and stop the gravity from sucking in and crushing everything of worth around him. Sometimes the weight of his emptiness risks the lives of the people on this ship. Sometimes it risks his own.

 

She finds, with incredible sadness, that sometimes he wishes he could patch it up, too. But he doesn’t ever let himself entertain this thought. Since Ariel, it has grown, though. He thinks about regret now, like he never has before. And maybe he only regrets what he did because Mal almost murdered him over it. Maybe he only regrets what he did because he cares too much about his own life to not want to lose it.

 

But that wouldn’t be entirely true.

 

Something in him understood the depth of what he had done when he stared into Mal’s hateful eyes through that small window. Something in him understood, when Mal slammed that comm down, that what he had done wasn’t right. Something in him understands, even now, that he had screwed up.

 

He has never admitted that he was wrong about anything until that day. At least, not since he left his mother on that backwater planet he used to call his home. Because before Jayne was always right, his mother was always right, but she’s not around anymore to tell him how to watch himself and guide his footsteps. Jayne has fallen away from what he used to know. It’s always been ‘stick out for yourself’ since that day, but Jayne is beginning to learn that sticking out for only yourself can sometimes lead to people turning on you, too.

 

Jayne has learned regret, but it’s not enough to patch up the black hole inside of himself. The emptiness, the crushing gravity, is still there. He still doesn’t really know how to think about anybody’s good will over his own, though he tries occasionally. He tries.

 

It means something, at least.

 

River understands something about the blackness, after all. She understands the pull of something greater within you, trying to mold you to its will. She understands trying to fight against that, and understands that she is fighting against something just like Jayne is. Something threatening to overpower you, but you don’t want it to win. Sometimes you let it, though; sometimes it leads you to things you regret afterwards. River still remembers the taste of Simon’s mouth, still remembers the warm slide of his tongue against hers. She still remembers the black hole within, trying to pull her in. Trying to control her. Trying to win.

 

She doesn’t want to let it win.

 

She doesn’t want it to win in Jayne either.

 

River approaches him slowly, careful steps across the smooth panels of the dining room. Jayne’s eyes are angry, but they are mostly frightened, watching her with trepidation as she nears. He lifts the knife again, pointing at her with it.

 

“Now, you stop it right there, little missy—” he warns, but she cuts him off.

 

“Or what?” she asks, the question startling him. “What are you going to do . . . Jayne?” She rolls the name on her tongue again, likes the way it sounds, and continues walking forward. Quiet, soft steps.

 

He’s stock still, looking at her, unblinking. He doesn’t lower the knife. “Or I’ll . . . I’ll . . . ”

 

She is so close to the counter now. She moves to the end of it to walk around onto the side where he is. He visibly reacts, moving backwards, but he has nowhere to go.

 

“I said stop right there, you gorram crazy freak—”

 

But she isn’t listening. She just keeps walking closer. River walks right up to the knife he’s using as a shield between himself and her—and gently presses herself against it. The point is sharp against her chest, but it doesn’t pierce skin or cloth. Jayne is terrified out of his mind.

 

She carefully lays a hand on his chest. “Heart,” she says softly. “Heart beats. Blood pumps. But a blackness is in you.” She looks up at his eyes. Scared, frozen eyes. “I have a blackness in me, too,” she says quietly.

 

Jayne is too frightened, too confused to say anything. He tries to, of course, but the words freeze somewhere in his throat and his twisting lips aren’t forming any coherent sounds. The knife is loose in his hand, but he isn’t lowering it. His furrowed brow and creased face speak enough for her, though, and that is most of him isn’t sure what’s going on here. She likes that. It’s how she feels a lot of the time, too.

 

She wants to close the blackness. Doesn’t know if he’ll let her, but she wants to try. She looks down at his chest again, her hand clutching slightly at his shirt. “I was trying to release the blackness,” River tries to explain, remembering the Blue Sun staring up at her. She tries to explain, though she knows he doesn’t understand. “It was pulling . . . pulling within. I was trying to stop it, and I . . . I hurt you instead.” She runs a gentle finger along the scar beneath his shirt; he visibly flinches in response, tightening his grip on the knife. Before he can respond, though, she adds sadly, “I’m sorry.”

 

Jayne is taken aback by her comment; the surprise registering on his face is very real. The knife loosens in his hand again, and she takes her moment. She looks up at him, into the confusion, and takes it.

 

She grabs him before he can react—and presses her lips to his with a force that even he has trouble fighting. The knife clatters to the floor in the wake of Jayne’s shock and his back hits the wall.

 

When his mouth opens to hers, even if it is in a gesture of surprise, some vague part of her mind registers that he doesn’t taste anything at all like morphine.

 

 


End file.
